Exquisite was the view of the great plain below us, with its magnificent campos stretching as far as the eye could see, far away to the horizon line. In the far distance, scattered here and there, rose the peculiar flat-topped isolated mountains before described. Again all that day we marched over ashes, red sand, and volcanic débris. The highest point we reached was 1,950 ft. A snake dashed across our way among the hoofs of my mule, but no harm was done.
Near Camp Bugueirão (elev. 1,800 ft.), where we halted, there was a delightful, clear, tiny spring emerging from white volcanic crystallized rock. Then more campos over lovely undulations in the country. Close by was what the Brazilians call a furnas (from the Latin fornus)—a somewhat misapplied term by which they named any deep hollow or chasm, whether vertical like a precipice or horizontal such as a cave.
It was getting slightly less cold during the nights. On May 24th the Fahrenheit thermometer registered a minimum of 60° and a maximum temperature of 75°.
Owing to the usual trouble of recovering the mules in the morning we only left camp at 10.30 a.m., rising over great masses of ferruginous rock, which showed through the deposits of ashes and sand at an elevation of 1,950 ft. The immense view of the campos in great undulations was really exquisite to the west and south-west.
My mules were then travelling over a strange narrow strip of rock at a height of 2,050 ft.—in some places only a few yards across—on the top of vertical walls dividing two deep valleys, one to the south, very extensive, with great lava-flows; another to the north. In the latter valley an immense extinct crater was visible, in three well-defined internal terraces and a deep central depression.
Upon climbing on the summit of a high conical hill I further discovered that the crater had an elongated shape, the longest diameter being from north to south, the southern and lower part being overlapped by a voluminous flow of lava which also covered a great part of the mountain slope. Strange monoliths were numerous, among the many fantastically shaped rocks, and also boulders lying about at all angles. One like a huge table rested on the top of another, upon which it had fallen with great force, as could be seen by the vertical splitting of the rock underneath. The rock above appeared simply broiled—and so were the huge masses of débris, especially of ferruginous rock, which had evidently been ejected by that crater. The entire summit of the crater cone (2,100 ft. above the sea level) was of hard black baked rock.
Close by, to the north, was another peculiar oval depression, the highest part of which to the north-west was in four distinct terraces in the interior. The eastern part was more flattened, not unlike a huge soup plate. In the centre was another deep depression—possibly an extinct crater too. This second crater was to the north of the high-domed crater described above.
In the near west we had mere undulations over which we gradually travelled, but the country was getting much more disturbed than it had appeared since leaving the Araguaya River. Due west farther away stood before us a weird-looking plateau with a vertical high wall to the north. To the south it showed three terraces, the two lower ones supported on perpendicular cliffs, whereas a convex slope was between the second and third, or top terrace. To the south-west in the far distance another high plateau could be perceived, also with vertical cliffs to the north, but slanting at its southern end—a shape characteristic of nearly all the isolated mountains of that zone.
Looking south we perceived great tongues of lava extending from east to west—the eastern point being higher than the western, showing that the lava had flowed there from east to west. Then there was also a great sloping grassy slant, possibly over another extensive lava-flow, from the crater we had examined. Extending toward the south-west was another tongue of lava of great width when measured from north-west to south-east, the latter (south-east) being its lowest point. On its north-east side this great flow had a high vertical face. Between these enormous tongues of lava, east to west and south-east to north-west, was a depression or channel extending as far as a distant high dome in three terraces to the south-west. On our course we came upon more curious flattened eruptive rocks, which had split on falling with great force to earth after having been ejected from a volcano.
Other parallel ranges could be clearly perceived. To bearings magnetic 160° were again to be seen our old friends the two strange gabled-roof and tower mountains.